Well, that's kind of answered on the FAQ page, but I've been meaning to update it anyway.

When I created the comic's leading character, there was no comic. Nothing. He was just a sketch based on a few other comics, mainly Namir Deiter and Funny Farm. I chose the name Mycroft because I was reading a complete volume of the Shewlock Holmes mysteries. A few ideas for his last name came to mind; Castor, Canuck, McAstor... and Nickel. As you may or may not know, on Canadian coins we have pictures of animals... except for the dime which features a boat and the penny which has leaves. Anyway, on the nickel there is a beaver. I thought it was a fitting, normal sounding name.

It just later came to me, thinking of something and the phrase "Plugged Nickel" worked it's way in there. It's an old phrase, one some people have never heard before. As to what it means...

Q. What the heck IS a plugged nickel anyway?A. Plugs are the holes made in coins to extract some metal which can be used for other purposes. Coins so tampered with are no longer legal tender. Nickels being coins of small denomination lend themselves for use in this phrase. Essentially, the term means "worthless".Basically, there's two origion theories. One is that these coins became plugged when the cost of silver increased. People hollowed out their nickels (then made of silver) and filled them with a lesser metal, then sold the silver. The second theory is that the term came from the Wild West, when cocky cowboys would prove their stuff by tossing nickels into the air and seeing if they could shoot a hole or dent into them, IE plugged. That would also explain how the term plugged came to describe an individual who had been shot. Of course, unlike the hollowed out explination, these nickels were most likely still used in commerce... as who is going to argue when a gunman pays for his lodgings with a fist full of plugged nickels and two six-shooters on his hips?

How do I come up with my ideas for the jokes? Well like most writers I take a lot of inspiration from daily life and past experiences... and things I wish I had said or done. In the case of this comic is is preatty much a paraphrase of a conversation I had with a friend of mine who lived on the same floor as me during my senior year at university. Some comics are based on actual events... and some obviously did not. Seriously, I have no idea why I thought that last one was a good idea.

But basically I have a general storyline planned out, and I think of things that happen along the way. Those events are surrounded by conversations, and I usually take it one step at a time. If I have an idea and I think I'll forget it, I write it down. But it's pretty much in my head.

Do I find my own jokes funny when I come up with them? A little bit. Usually I think about whether or not someone else would find them funny. If I get a smile out of it, I consider it good. But it is extremely seldom that I actually laugh at my own work. I already know the punchline. I'm more likely to laugh when imagining people's reactions.